


all bitter and clean

by yenside



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, canon AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-08-26
Packaged: 2018-01-08 20:19:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1136945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yenside/pseuds/yenside
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mission was a failure. (the scene ends badly,<br/>as you might imagine)</p>
            </blockquote>





	all bitter and clean

.

You are the furthest number from zero. 

.

The mission was a failure. You wait with your hands folded patiently behind your back and your tongue locked safely behind your teeth. When the creeping tendrils tighten around you, you do not have time to scream. When the colours leech from your skin, you grit your teeth.

You feel cold.

You feel-

.

The Master which is called One tells it that it is called the Dancing Flames. The Master uses other words with the other Masters, but the Dancing Flames pays no heed.

The body is not confusing, or hard to control. The body has always been this way.

When the body stops being this way... it will already have been forgotten.

.

Demyx is new.

One day, he asks "if I'm IX, what happened to VIII?"

He is met with cold silence. He does not ask again.

.

It catches a reflection of itself, looking back at it from the mirror. The armour and thorns look wrong, somehow.

The mask on its face feels wrong.

.

The Master called Nine is confused by it, and asks it why it is not like the Dusks, and not like the Dancers. There is a reason, it knows.

Behind its eyes, there are shapes that do not make sense.

It etches one of them on the wall with a sharp claw - an X where the top and bottom are joined together.

It looks a little like an hourglass, and the Dancing Flames looks at the Master to see if it will understand what it means.

The Master looks at the Dancing Flames, and the colour has leeched from him.

He turns on his heels and runs.

.

The Dancers chitter away at the Dancing Flames for the next week, but it can ignore them. 

Eventually, all is forgotten.

.

The other Masters will call upon the Dancing Flames, sometimes. Mostly, it is the Master called One who gives the missions to it.

It follows the orders, it performs well, it destroys what it is told to destroy.

It does not remember the missions, after they are finished.

It does not expect rewards.

It does not expect.


End file.
